Scavenger's Bright Idea
by ultharkitty
Summary: G1, Dysfunction AU. In which Bruticus has a mission, Scavenger gets excited, and Starscream isn't at all pleased with the Combaticons. Contains fluff, crack, dead jellyfish and combat style violence. Set shortly after B.O.T.


**Notes:** This happens shortly after B.O.T., and the events in 'Disassembled', but you don't have to have read that fic to understand this one.

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* * *

The sky was blue, the air was clear, and just one thing disturbed the peaceful percussion of two dozen Decepticons readying their weapons.

"You summoned the Combaticons?" Starscream screeched. "After last time? _Are you insane!_"

Seated on a jumble of nearby rocks, his gun on his knees and his team spread out at a safe distance around him, Onslaught couldn't help but overhear.

"They were your idea." Megatron said.

"They're _your_ soldiers!" Starscream gestured with a null ray. "Do you have any idea what goes on at their base? Vortex tried to _kill_ Swindle. They can't be trusted together."

"That's rich," Megatron replied. "Coming from you." He glanced over at the Combaticons, causing Onslaught to take a very sudden and intense interest in his firearm. "There is a simple solution to this, Starscream, and one which appears to have escaped you. They must remain combined for the duration of the battle."

Onslaught paused in his preparations. He didn't like the sound of that. And, judging by the collected mutters and curses, neither did his troops.

* * *

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* * *

Bruticus had a headache.

The other Decepticons didn't help. The small ones scurried between his legs, and tried to use him for cover. The larger ones kept getting in his way.

The headache, however, wasn't the only thing he had. He also had a purpose, as clear to him as the distinction between Megatron - ally, commander, leader - and the Autobot filth who hid among the rocks and fired constantly at his weakest parts. It was a simple purpose, and one he understood well: get to the top of the hill and fire the very big gun.

_Thermotropic disruptor cannon,_ his databanks corrected him, but he didn't know what that meant, and the syllables were hard to remember. So he just thought of it as the very big gun.

It made him nervous.

Last time he'd tried to fire a very big gun, he'd shot Starscream. He hadn't felt good about that. Starscream wasn't leader and he wasn't commander (any more), but he _was_ an ally, and Bruticus wasn't meant to harm his allies.

It wasn't his fault. It was that spherical drone, the dull little robot shuffling around between his feet. He hadn't liked the look of that robot, although he couldn't work out why. He'd wanted to crush it. But the part of his mind that helped him tell his enemies from his friends just treated it as scenery. So he'd ignored his disgust, and left it alone.

Bruticus hated what a bad call that had been.

And he hated this mission. Waking up to a battle just beginning was nothing new to him, but the combination of the hidden enemy, and the idea that he couldn't trust the scenery not to take sides… It took all the enjoyment out of it.

That, and his components had been arguing. One of his legs was out of favour. He didn't know why – searching his components' memories for the answer would take too much time – but there was pain there, and fear, and loathing. And none of it did anything to make his headache go away.

It was a relief when he reached the top of the hill. And a bigger relief when he got his hands on the controls of the very big gun. He looked down at his feet, but there was no little round robot waiting to sabotage Megatron's plan.

Bullets continued to dent his armour, but he didn't care. He smiled, his face mask shifting with the unfamiliar movement. Then he aimed, and fired.

He didn't know what he was firing at, it was too far away to see – he only knew the coordinates. But as soon as that vibrant orange beam speared into the sky, the battlefield emptied. The Autobots fled, the grounders piling into their big white shuttle, the airframes shooting up into the blue. Bruticus laughed as the Decepticons gave chase.

It was only after the last of the troops vanished from sight that Bruticus began to wonder if he ought to have gone with them.

He didn't know. No one had told him to. Was he allowed to fragment? He didn't know that either. All he knew were his objectives: gain the hill, fire the gun, remain combined. He'd done all three, but there was no-one left to tell him what to do next.

No, wait, there was someone: a green and purple mech with caterpillar treads on his legs, like one of Bruticus's components. He walked along the nearby beach, head down, like he was searching for something.

Bruticus threw a rock at him.

"Hey!" the little mech yelled. An appendage at his back whipped around, sand flying from the end. "What the frag'd you do that for? That _hurt_!"

Hurt? Oh no, not again. "Not meant to hurt," Bruticus said, each word enunciated slowly, to ensure that he got it right. "Meant to get your attention."

The mech paused. "Really?"

Bruticus nodded.

Green and purple cocked his head to one side. "Wanna see what I found?"

Did he? Bruticus didn't know, but he nodded again anyway. This mech was an ally, his programming was very clear about that; and if an ally wanted to show him something, Bruticus should allow it. Especially as this other mech was a combiner. Bruticus knew the name of his gestalt form - Devastator - but couldn't remember the individual components. He waited for data retrieval.

"It's really awesome!" the little mech called. "But you gotta come down to see it. You're coming down, right?"

Finally, Bruticus's databanks gave up the required information: Construction, designation Scavenger. Bruticus headed down the hill.

The beach was strange. The ground behaved oddly, trickling in through his seams and tickling his connections. It was more like a liquid than Earth's usual dirt; Bruticus had forgotten it could be like that.

"Over here," Scavenger waved. "Look at this!"

Bruticus ambled towards him, then stopped. The false-liquid ground was covered with a mass of... something. Bruticus's processor threw up words in response – gelatinous, slimy, iridescent – but he couldn't make sense of them. "What is that?"

"I dunno!" Scavenger said.

Colours danced over the slick, blobby surface. "It's shiny," Bruticus said. "Like energon."

Scavenger's optics lit up. "Yeah, you're right! Do you think it's an energon source? A whole new one? I mean it could be, couldn't it? These organic worlds are full of all kinds of amazing stuff!"

Bruticus shrugged. He knew what energon was, but he'd never tasted it, and he had absolutely no idea how it was made. He assumed that was something his components were meant to know about. "It could be," he said. He gave the blob a careful visual inspection; something about the undulating surface told him he really didn't want to touch it. "It's very small," he commented.

"Small?" Scavenger looked crestfallen.

Bruticus made a box shape with his hands. "You need more to fill more cubes?" he hazarded.

"Ooooooh..." Scavenger glanced around, his fingers wiggling. "I got it!" he cried.

"You do?" Bruticus leaned over him. He couldn't see anything, but then that didn't mean there wasn't something there. "Is it invisible?"

"No, not that! C'mon! These things washed outta the sea, look!" He pointed over the water, where islands of floating slimy goo strongly implied the presence of more of the potential energon source. "All we gotta do is harvest them!"

Bruticus was about to ask Scavenger how, when another question hit him. "Why aren't you with the others?"

"Oh that, I always stick behind," Scavenger said. "You never know what you'll find after a battle."

* * *

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* * *

It was a while before Bruticus was missed. Starscream transformed midair, and surveyed the troops. He didn't need to do a headcount – it wasn't as though he could mistake Bruticus for someone else. "_GAH!_."

"What's the matter, Starscream?" Megatron taunted. "Lost something?"

All right then, Bruticus _had_ been missed. Nice of the slagger to say something about it before. Starscream glowered. "No," he snapped.

Thankfully, Bruticus wasn't difficult to find; his locater was working just fine, and he'd barely moved from the place Starscream had left him.

And it wasn't hard to work out what he was doing. He stood ankle deep in an immense pile of jellyfish, the end of a net in his hand. What was less clear, however, was why. And why there was a cheerful-looking Constructicon sitting on his shoulder.

"Hey, Starscream!" Scavenger yelled, having apparently forgotten that he possessed comms. "STARSCREAM! We found a new source of energon!" He looked thoughtful for a moment, then added. "Probably!"

_No_, Starscream thought, _you haven't_. He hovered in root mode, arms crossed, feeling the scowl settle on his faceplates. The Combaticons had embarrassed him for the last time. At least Bruticus looked ashamed, or confused. Actually, it was hard to tell. _You're both idiots_, Starscream was about to say, but then an idea came to him. An idea so blindingly brilliant and wonderfully simple that he just had to smile.

Oh, this was going to be perfect.

"Bruticus," he said. "De-combine, Megatron's orders."

The screams and splats and yelled expletives as the Combaticons and Scavenger made contact with the heap of jellyfish were like music to Starscream's audials. Revenge was sweet indeed.


End file.
